


Finding Yourself

by mycahthelittlehobbit



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Mild Angst, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5680915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mycahthelittlehobbit/pseuds/mycahthelittlehobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Behind every powerful man stands an even more powerful woman.  Sometimes you just have to turn around to find her before she walks away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Stupid fluff that I wrote years ago and am getting around to posting. No one beta-ed this work

He forgets at times that I’m just as an astute observer as he is, especially when it pertains to him. That is what I’m paid to do, after all. Not that I’ll ever tell him or indicate that I know what he does when he thinks I’m not looking.

It happens most when we’re in the car. I am perpetually on my mobile wherever we go, always preparing for the next thing on our agenda. The intent concentration on my blackberry makes him think I don’t see when the file he’s been reading has laid lax in his lap for the past twenty minutes because he’s so fixated on watching me. He’s always professional about it, never lingering except upon my hands and face. Sometimes I think it would be beneficial to just lean into his side and give him permission to wind an arm around my waist, watch, and fully relax in those quiet moments between meetings; but I don’t. It’s better this way. As far as I’m concerned, everything between us is satisfactory and professional.

There are obvious downsides when considering a romantic relationship with my employer. Power plays, sexual harassment suits at work, and the chance that the personal shift between us would harm the optimum working relationship that we cultivated.

In the past few weeks though, he’s been more distant, almost sad. His looks have become wistful. Just before he got out of the car today to enter his home, he hesitated as though he had something to ask of me.

I was glad when he bid me good evening and left without another word.

Would it be so bad of me to simply lean across the canyon of unsaid sentiments between us and tell him that I feel the same way that he seems to? Yes. But I couldn’t explain why other than for professional reasons. If I was strong in this way for us, he could be strong for the entire country.  
I’m just the PA after all. No one actually dates the PA. I’m just for distracting the others.

*

Perhaps this is perfect. He deserves this, her. For all that he does, he deserves to be happily in love with her. I’m just the PA. She’s the young, smart professor of British Literature whom he’s head over heels for.

They met at some function or another a month or so ago, clicking instantly. She asked him to coffee. Later he asked her to dinner. Somewhere along the way I believe they stayed together for breakfast, and now he can’t stop smiling.

I think… It might be time for me to go. Watching them together is much more heart wrenching than I anticipated, and I believe that it is starting to affect my work performance. He’ll suspect something, but they truly are deserving of each other. He’s so happy, and I need to move on with my own life. Besides, everything that I thought I saw between us could simply have been all in my head, and I might end up making a fool of myself in the years to come as they stay together and I pined for him silently.

Eight years of working for him and living a very Spartan lifestyle, there is enough money in my savings account to give me a few years break from work and London.

*

I did it. I left him. He tried to ask me to stay, but I couldn’t watch how happy she makes him knowing it might have been me one day. Not that I told him that or anything like of the sort, just that I needed to leave. I feel like a foolish woman who is obsessing over a man that she can’t and should never have. Never have I felt so… Out of sorts. Leaving London will be good, make me feel like less of a school girl and more the confident professional woman I am.

He looked… Concerned. Weary. I offered to stay for a month to train my replacement. He accepted readily. I guess after so many years of studying the ways and means of Mycroft Holmes, I still do not understand him fully. Such a blatant emotional display was a bit… Out of character for him.

Leaving London will be good for me, I think that I shall go somewhere off this Island we live on, where it will take him some time to locate me should he ever need me.

*

I’ve moved to a small town in the Pacific Northwest of North America. This is good. I now have the time and space to find my poise once again. There are a few places that I could find work in and keep myself well lived here for the foreseeable future. There is no need for me to go back to London.

The last month working there was difficult. He was pleasant, kind, attentive. His new PA, a man of no significant back ground, trained well and will serve him effectively. But he asked me. The selfish bafoon asked me to stay in the end. He was on his way to meet her for dinner and he had the gall to ask me to stay at his side, giving me a raise and a higher position.

No. I do not regret leaving. And I will do well here, living on my own. No one that I know around me, I can mold myself to whoever I want to be.

*

After going to the local bar a few times and discovering how little the owner knew of good business techniques and different mixed drinks, I offered to help him. He’s older, cranky, and rude… but he is always kind in a gruff way to me. He accepted out of curiosity at first, but now he gives me a weekly salary. I make sure that it is not too large, I don’t need much to support my lifestyle for now.

I go in to the bar midmorning to go over his books and help with some organization for him, later we talk and I show him some of my favorite drinks, and some that I simply know off hand that people that I knew had enjoyed. Business has started picking up since I’ve been tending the bar with him. Could be because I’m a woman who is not unattractive, or that there’s new drinks on the menu to order. Either way, my new friend is quite content to have an extra hand around.

It’s good. It’s different. I’m more talkative, friendly even. No longer concerned with being proficient and tidy, but stepping back and enjoying those around me.

I left London two months ago. I’m both sad and relieved that he hasn’t called after me. I pointedly do not think about it most days.

*

It had been seven easy going and relaxing months when I got the frantic phone call from the now not so new PA. I didn’t think that anything would ever be able to pry me from my new life. I loved it. All of my emotional, mental and physical health needs were being met; there was nothing that I was in want of. I had established myself as a consulting business expert for the town, and one of the local bartenders. I had even gone on a few dates, if unsuccessful. I had moved on with my life.

But then Ethan the new PA called. Mycroft had been kidnapped, and the poor assistant hadn’t known who to turn to. It wasn’t until later that I found out that the terrorist group had specifically asked for me. It seems as though they had a grudge against Mycroft and me.

What was I to do? I couldn’t leave him to their not so tender care. Stupid of them to pick a fight with me; really with the Mycroft’s resources and my tenacity. They even used their old headquarters, the ones that I remembered quite well from previous visits.

Some people were surprised to see me. Ethan didn’t know me so well, so he had been the least fazed and easiest to work with. When I went to meet with the agents who were joining me in the field, some remembered me and were happy to have me back in charge again. I set about explaining the plan to them, and then we were off to extract Mycroft. I personally took the leader into custody, handing him over to MI6 swiftly to go find our kidnapping victim.

Mycroft was in bad shape when I got to him. The medical team arrived to take him away a few moments later, but he wouldn’t let go of my hand. The doctors stabilized him and I stayed by his bed in the hospital until they told me he was through the worst of it. In the quiet morning light I said good bye to Ethan and silently slipped away back to my home. I had only been gone from the little town I now called home for three days. No one asked questions about the few marks on my arms or the cold look in my eye.

*

It wasn’t until four peaceful weeks later that he walked confidently into my bar one night. He came straight to where I was serving and asked for a gin and tonic. So very prim and proper English of him. He said nothing else to me but ordered one more once he nursed the first one to completion. I told my usual customers to leave him be, and they understood. This man was British and had something to do with me and my unknown past.

I closed up the bar, Mycroft following me out and walking with me home. I put the kettle on when we arrived. There was a conversation to be had still tonight. He did not get to show up without an explanation. Perhaps for once we’d actually talk instead of taking our cues off of body language.

*

“You left,” he had his hands in his pocket, looking around my little home carefully, likely deducing more from my front room and kitchen than if I had told him every detail of the past few months since I had come here.

“I had a job to return to,” I figured that he was talking about the hospital incident.

He turned to watch me carefully, “No, Anthea. You left as soon as I started seeing Dr. Campbell,” he was not talking about the hospital then.

“And how is she? You two were very happy when I resigned,” I was going to play the oblivious fool. I had moved on, there was nothing that I wanted from him but to be happy in his own life away from mine. Well, I would not let myself want anything from him.

“You infuriating woman,” he ground out, stepping closer then stopping himself, “I mean, you left me, London, Europe. Why? What were you running from? The timing leads me to one answer, but I hadn’t dared to hope until you came back four weeks ago.”

“I came back out of loyalty, nothing else,” the water was boiling and I was increasingly not wanting to have this conversation. I set out two cups and pulled out two mint tea packets with no caffeine, “Are you staying in town? I can call a cab for you in a little while,” casual topic change, he will see straight through it.

“Anthea,” he sounded so… unlike him. Just his saying my name and I could hear a multitude of sins contained in those three soft syllables. My back was to him as I prepared the tea, but it wasn’t hard to track his movements through the kitchen to stand behind me, hands clenched at his sides, “Please.”

There was one word that I had never heard him say. Not like that, at least. I had changed, what would he want with me now? I had a life in this town. I was happy.

“Is there anything I can do, anything at all, to convince you to come back with me?” 

“What would I do in London? I can’t go back to being your assistant. I like what I do here, my life is very fulfilling as it is,” I turned slowly, looking at him standing just a foot from me, “I’ve changed. You might not like who I am any longer.”

“You could do whatever you wanted,” his eyes had that horrid glint of hope in them that made me feel weak for wanting to give into what he wanted even if I wanted it just as badly, “I doubt that it would lessen my feelings for you. Did you know, I broke up with Dr. Campbell the night that you left and I asked you to stay? I realized then what a fool I had been.”

I had to stop him from talking. If he kept going, there was a high chance that I would rashly make him promises that I would regret in the morning, “I think that perhaps you should go. Come back in the morning and then we can talk more.”

I walked him out, watching him walk down the road towards the only place to say in town, a modest motel, before going inside and sitting on the sofa to think through his offer and what I wanted from my life without his influence on the decision.

*

Morning came and I was still on my sofa, asleep under a thin blanket, when he knocked. I let him in and sat him down beside me, then quietly settled to explain what I had decided the night before. I would be moving back to London to start my own consulting firm, live in my own flat still, be my own person with no one to answer to, and during that time if he still thought that he wanted to pursue something, he could. Partway through the conversation he looked so relieved that I would be back near him, I thought that there might have been a slight increase of moisture in his eyes. When I stood with the offer to make him breakfast because I was hungry too, he stood with a nervous look and nodded, following me into the kitchen as though he was afraid that if he let me out of his sight I would disappear and all of this would have been a dream.

For the next three days he stayed by my side while I arranged for my consulting business to move to London, along with renting out my little house here and saying goodbye to the people at the bar. He helped with the London things, opening my flat back up and finding an office space for me, and gave me space to say goodbye. I let him stay in my house after that first night, put him to work helping me to pack and letting him share a bed with me.

Finally, I sent him off back home with the promise that I would be following in a few days once I had everything settled here. There were more things to bring back than I had brought, but I found that I didn’t mind. It had been a good year away from London, and I was happy that I had taken it. I was just as happy to be returning to my city though. A slightly redefined person, but still myself in all of the ways that mattered.


End file.
